By Punky Coletta

Menu

My husband and I looked forever at stores to find something unique and beautiful to hang on our living room wall. We kept on seeing the same kinds of things at the discount stores that were in our budget, and nothing caught our attention as something we wanted to look at and be inspired by every day.

I secretly wished I could paint murals, then we would really have something unique and special in that room. Then I thought, hey, I can’t paint, but I can do photography, why not use some of my own art to hang? So hubby and I picked out some favorites, printed them at home, and purchased some frames at the dollar store. For less than ten dollars, we got a beautiful, mural-like display of themed photography on our own LivingRoomWall.

I want to share this idea with others who would like something unique to look at every day in their home and have it be affordable.

Thanks for stopping in!
LRW

PS. One suggesting for a pleasing way to use these photos is themes. For example, you could do 5×7 framed prints of the different Paris Door photos and have a beautiful pattern display on your own living room wall.

I may need to call my mom and ask her to buy something so I can have that first sale. But it is there! Do you ever think about doing things but then never do them? I am trying to do more of those things that I think of, and this is a start.

A start. I am letting myself be a beginner. Yay! Thank you to Julia Cameron and The Artist’s Way for that one, and then to Janice MacLeod and Paris Letters for the Etsy idea as a way to have fun with my photography playing.

The name of my shop is LivingRoomWall and it sells digital downloads of photography that one can print at home and display / frame as one likes.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I could write a very long essay about what this means to me:

Where is this? Outside the Louvre in Paris (please pronounce ‘Paris’ as parrrie in your head because I don’t know how to enunciate the accent thing in type. The three ‘r’s represent that half gargling sound in the back of your throat).

I will not write a long essay because… well… boring! But I will say that the following represents my experience of Paris and extends to the unfortunate state of the world.

Notice the beautiful palace in the background, the building itself is as much of a work of art as the famous pieces it houses (like that lady with the intriguing smile).

Now notice the work of statue art in the foreground. A man beating down on another man with the head of a horse (not sure if it is a horse, but it is some kind of worker beast and horse is the first thing that my brain related to). As a warehouse worker, there are times when I look at my coworkers and their struggles and think of the struggles I used to have when there was no money even though I was breaking my body, and that many of them are still in that place and that it is very possible that I could end up back in that place in the future, and I feel like that horse-head-man, looked at only as a means to product.

I have to stop here because of course this all relates to the never ending human issue of the have and have-nots, rich and poor, a deep problem that in thousands of years we have never solved as a people, a problem that there are so many opinions on and makes my brain hurt and my heart ache. I will think a thousand words about the way the horse-head-man is licking himself, the way the man above him is holding the beating stick, and on and on.

Sometimes I feel angry that as a woman, I am expected to do the same things as a man when I am different on a biological level. I am talking about menstruation, people. Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to take prescription medication to control Aunt Flow’s monthly visit just so that I can maintain the work schedule that society expects? Aren’t there cultures where women can go to a special menstruation hut 5-7 days out of the month to bleed in peace? This anger may be exacerbated by my boss’s attitude toward what he sees as gratuitous use of the bathroom.

I feel really good about myself right now because I just used the words ‘exacerbated’ and ‘gratuitous,’ even though that red squiggly line declared the spelling to be incorrect at the first typing attempt.

From the mouth of my brother-in-law, “Sometimes she gets excited and forgets.” This was in response to niece #1 peeing herself when a lot of visitors came over.

If we are outside, keep eyes on niece #1 at all times, or she is known to take off running down the block. (They make leashes for kids, right?)

When I use the bathroom, niece #2 comes and scratches at the door until I come back out.

I wanted to end this post with a picture of a cute puppy, but all I have is this picture of a Koala bear (sorry, no photo credit, have no idea where I got this), and those fuzzy, claw-y creatures are as cute as puppies, just ask Sheldon.

You are in your 20s, maybe in love, maybe not. Either way, societal pressures = ‘you are too young to get married, etc…’

You are in your 30s, societal pressures = ‘you aren’t married yet? When are you having kids?’

I’m sorry, when are we supposed to make all of this stuff happen? It is like you only have this small window from 27 to 33 to fall in love, settle down, establish a household, have your career life figured out, and start making babies.

Can’t keep them all straight. Seems like all these websites have different requirements for passwords — must have one capital letter, at least two numbers, one special character, no special characters — so I can’t just use the same one so that remembering is easy. Writing them down seems not secure.

My brain is full. Not signing up for anymore websites.

I really wanted to go onto Trip Advisor and write a wonderful review about John, our tour guide from… what was the name of that place? It had the same name as some kind of disease… Cataract. That was it. Cataract Tours.

John was awesome, and since I refuse to sign up for anymore password-access websites, I can not say it there, so I will say it here.